Free Republic

Over 100 participants from 18 countries – including NASA scientists and the agency’s NEOWISE mission – took part in the international exercise. Watching the skies for large asteroids that could pose a hazard to the Earth is a global endeavor. So, to test their operational readiness, the international planetary defense community will sometimes use a real asteroid’s close approach as a mock encounter with a “new” potentially hazardous asteroid. The lessons learned could limit, or even prevent, global devastation should the scenario play out for real in the future. To that end, more than 100 astronomers from around the world...

This coming October, an asteroid will fly by Earth. Known as 2012 TC4, this small rock is believed to measure between 10 and 30 meters (30 and 100 feet) in size. As with most asteroids, this one is expected to sail safely past Earth without incident. This will take place on October 12th, when the asteroid will pass us at a closest estimated distance of 6,800 kilometers (4,200 miles) from Earth’s surface. That’s certainly good news. But beyond the fact that it does not pose a threat to Earth, NASA is also planning on using the occasion to test their...

Illustration Of A Planetoid Crashing Into Earth In 2013, a 60-foot-wide meteor exploded over Russia, and no one saw it coming. The Chelyabinsk impactor was relatively small by interplanetary standards, but the blast injured about 1,500 people and damaged 7,000 buildings. If a larger rock were headed for Earth, how would we defend ourselves? The short answer is, scientists aren’t really sure, but one solution sounds a lot like the plot from a 1998 Michael Bay movie: just nuke ‘em. In hopes of averting a space rock calamity, The New York Times reports that NASA has just sealed a deal...

The American space agency wants to work out how it can grab an asteroid or at least a large chunk of one. Corralling a large piece of space rock is a key part of the agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge and the Asteroid Redirect Mission. Despite the damage caused by a meteor that exploded over Chelyabinsk last year, Nasa believes the earth is safe from an asteroid collision for at least a century.

A FEW weeks ago, an asteroid almost 30 feet across and zipping along at 38,000 miles per hour flew 28,000 miles above Singapore. Why, you might reasonably ask, should non-astronomy buffs care about a near miss from such a tiny rock? Well, I can give you one very good reason: asteroids don’t always miss. If even a relatively little object was to strike a city, millions of people could be wiped out. Thanks to telescopes that can see ever smaller objects at ever greater distances, we can now predict dangerous asteroid impacts decades ahead of time. We can even use...